Over the last week or so there have been a few occasions where I’ve felt like I’ve been banging my head against a brick wall regarding some project or other I’ve been working on. And on each occasion I’ve ended up getting past the brick wall following advice/information from someone else, and on some occasions actually learning something I would never have learned otherwise.

I think the lessons to be learned are as follows:

• Everyone knows something useful.
• Someone knows the thing that will eventually make your life easier and allow you to succeed.
• Talking to people who don’t know the technical intricacies of a project can sometimes help you regain focus.
• You will never know what you can contribute until you know what needs to be contributed.
• Sometimes the simple act of being thanked means a whole world more than monetary reward.

I’d also probably add that I like being busy, but that I can live without finding out at what point my capacity to achieve is affected by the length of my to-do list.

I’m sitting in the Green Room in the OLRC on Selly Oak Campus. The Green Room is what used to be the Literature Hall, where it housed books between 800 and 899 on the Dewey Decimal System and also hosted a vast array of teaching resources. Now, it is a new Learning Space, with comfy seats, plasma screens, and wifi access. Think a cross between a really posh living room, and a space-age cybercafe and you won’t be far away. Everything here is new, and is designed to give the students of the 21st century what they need to be productive. There are no books, no journals, and no remnants of the past here. It is exactly the sort of space I would have liked to have when I worked here, and I imagine that students love it. I say “imagine” because I am currently the only person here and can’t see or hear another human being. Yes, it’s Saturday, but I think that with a bit more publicity and promotion this could turn into a flagship learning space and could really put both the Univeristy and Selly Oak campus in particular at the forefront of innovative learning spaces. And that’s something I never thought I’d say when I walked through the doors of this building for the first time over 8 years ago.

Although, I must say, I do appreciate the quietness sometimes.